Page:Hine (1904) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/26

 where to be at a certain time to minimize the delay incident to engines bunching. The old switchman who becomes a yardmaster often proves a failure because he cannot overcome his inclination to follow one engine and take a hand in the switching himself. By so doing he may perhaps increase the work accomplished by that one engine, possibly five per cent; but in the meantime the other engines, for want of comprehensive, intelligent instructions, are getting in each other’s way and the efficiency of the day’s service is decreased maybe twenty per cent.

Good yardmasters are even harder to discover or develop than good train dispatchers. The exposure, the irregular hours for the yardmaster’s meals in even the best regulated yards make a good conductor leery about giving up a comfortable run to assume the increased responsibility of a yard. The pay of a yardmaster is little more than that of a conductor and is sometimes less. Right here is a chance for some deep administrative thought. It is so much easier to get good conductors than good yardmasters, should we not make the latter position more attractive? Some roads have done this by making it one